NEWSLETTER 02

Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics

August 2014

PEOPLE

August 2014

OECD REPORT ON RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURES
Interview with Valerio Vercesi, member of the OECD Global Science Forum (GSF) International Experts Group.

Which reasons prompted the GSF to issue this report, approved by the OECD Committee for Scientific and Technological Policy last June?
The GSF was initially approached by CERN, which was interested in having an external perspective that could serve as a basis for further optimising its policies, as well as being of value to CERN member states. The GSF aimed then to address the potential economic and societal impacts of international research facilities, using examples from one of the largest global research infrastructures. To achieve this goal, the GSF Secretariat staff carried out a small number of case studies, relying mainly on confidential interviews with the people most directly involved, and then the Forum worked out the outcome. Two of these investigations were addressed in detail: the development of the superconducting dipole magnets for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and CERN contribution to hadron cancer therapy using beams of carbon ions.
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NEWS

August 2014

Collaborations JUNO, AN UNDERGROUND GIANT TO CAPTURE NEUTRINOS

An international agreement, which marks the birth of Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), in China, was signed in July. This new scientific project includes, in addition to China and Italy that participates with INFN, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Russia and the US.

ScienceAEGIS, THE EFFECT OF GRAVITY ON ANTIMATTER

The AEGIS experiment (Antimatter Experiment: Gravity, Interferometry, Spectroscopy) at CERN, with the collaboration of the INFN, has measured the deflection of a beam of antiprotons under the effect of an extremely weak magnetic force, using an instrument called “Moiré deflectometer”.

Awards
GSSI: POST-DOC RESEARCHER WINS THE MICROSOFT AWARD

Catia Trubiani, post-doc researcher in Computer Science at Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI), the INFN international PhD school and centre for advanced studies, received the Microsoft Azure Research Award. Microsoft offers the availability of the Microsoft Azure Platform for 12 months to perform big data computation in the cloud.

FOCUS ON

ELI-NP, THE SUPER LASER OF THE FUTURE

ELI-NP (Extreme Light Infrastructure-Nuclear Physics) is a new international physics laboratory to be built in Magurele, in Romania. The heart of the project will be a gamma-ray beam (high and ultra-high-energy photons) housed at the IFIN-HH (Horia Hulubei National Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering ) research centre.
ELI-NP, which will study ultra-high-intensity laser-matter interaction, will be one of the three pillars of the ELI project to construct the most advanced laser system in the world, along with the facilities to study secondary sources (in Dolni Brezany, Czech Republic) and attosecond pulses (in Szeged, Hungary).

TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER

ITALRAD, A MAP OF THE NATURAL RADIOACTIVITY IN ITALY

The map of natural radioactivity in the Italian regions of Veneto and Tuscany has been completed, under the ITALRAD (ITALian RADioactivity) project. With the monitoring of Sardinia, recently started, this is the first step of the project, which aims to produce a complete map of natural radioactivity in Italy. The map shows the terrestrial radioactivity levels, which were measured as part of an advanced international study in the field of nuclear geophysics.